Hi Christian,

FlatLaf works. I can download the snapshot, download FlatLaf, and with FlatLaf in `custom/` I get a list of themes and those themes all do stuff. (I removed JTatoo from `custom/` before trying FlatLaf.)

What I don't see is a way to adjust the size of the menu and editor tab fonts.

The font dialog gives me the expected two font options, I think one for editor panes and one for everything else like the Results view. I am not sure which way around those font options are but I am sure I'm getting both of them (the Editor pane has a dotted zero; the Results pane has a kinda-like-a-phi zero with a slash.)

So far as I can tell, the themes internal to BaseX are invisible to the window manager; any theme adjuster tool would need to be a Java one, and searching has so far has found programming tutorials rather than applications.

Thanks!
Graydon

On Mon, Jan 26, 2026, at 07:23, Christian Grün wrote:
Hi Graydon,

JTattoo has not been updated for ages, so I am not sure if there is a chance to change the font size at all.

For testing, I have just added support for FlatLaf: You can download the latest snapshot [1], add the FlatLAF library to the classpath [2], and proceed as usual (start BaseX, choose the L&F, restart BaseX).

Looking forward to your feedback.

Best,
Christian

[1] https://files.basex.org/releases/latest/
[2] https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com/formdev/flatlaf/3.7/flatlaf-3.7.jar



Von: Graydon Saunders via BaseX-Talk <basex-talk@mailman.uni-konstanz.de>
Gesendet: Sonntag, 25. Januar 2026 06:12
An: BaseX <BaseX-Talk@mailman.uni-konstanz.de>
Betreff: [basex-talk] changing the BaseX GUI menu font
 
Hello --

So I've successfully added the JTattoo themes mentioned in the documentation https://jtattoo.de/index.html

These work, in that new theme names appear and the BaseX GUI application looks different when I select different themes from the list.

What they don't seem to do is provide any way to change the font size of the menus or the editor tabs with the file name in them. (The JTattoo themes do provide antialiasing, which is welcome.) It's a high resolution monitor and a notional 40 point font in the editor looks about right; the 11 or 12 point font to which the tabs and menus default is hard to read.

I am forming the impression that there might be some sort of global base font setting somewhere but I have no idea where I'd even start looking. (The themes that appear built in to the BaseX GUI also work; I presume those live in the JDK somewhere?) Is there some sort of -Djdk.controlFont.size setting available?

I'm using Linux (with LXQt as the window manager); I'm using OpenJDK 25.0.1 and BaseX 12.2.

Thanks!
Graydon